2014MNRAS.442.2357P

Possible electron energy distributions (EEDs) for Mrk 501 are studied through fitting multiband energy spectra in both steady and flare states with a one-zone synchrotron self-Compton model. Two kinds of the EEDs formed in different acceleration and cooling processes are assumed: a power law with an exponential cut-off (PLC) EED and a log-parabolic (LP) EED. The Markov Chain Monte Carlo method is used to estimate the model parameters in our fits. The results show that the LP model fits the spectral energy distributions better in both steady and flare states than PLC model, and the changes of model parameters from steady state to flare state can be explained reasonably. Therefore, it is concluded that the EEDs and the acceleration mechanisms in both steady and flare states would be the same for Mrk 501. Compared to Mrk 421 having different EEDs in different states, our analysis indicates that both acceleration and cooling processes are different in the jets of these two sources.